


Justified Kill

by Nadja_Lee



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: BAMF Jim Ellison, Blackmail, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Love, M/M, Protective Jim, Protectiveness, Sacrifice, Sandburg Gets His PhD Degree, Threats of Violence, Warrior Jim Sandburg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-02
Updated: 2006-11-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22990708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadja_Lee/pseuds/Nadja_Lee
Summary: Jim pays a visit to Blair’s chancellor and uses his Black Ops training to get the justice for his Guide that he wants.
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Kudos: 42





	Justified Kill

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: A dark Jim but only towards Blair’s enemies so it should be okay ;)
> 
> Thanks so much to Nancy who kindly offered to beta this even though she’s not into the Sentinel fandom. Thanks so much, lov *hugs*

# Justified Kill

The room was dark, only lit up by the street lamps and starry sky outside. The chancellor of Rainier University, who just a week before had so quickly and easily dismissed Blair from all academic life, lay peacefully sleeping in her bed.

Jim’s lips were an angry thin line at the sight. His Guide, his partner, might have been able to put on a brave face but Jim hadn’t been fooled. He had smelled the fresh tears and heard the soft sobs when he had gone to bed that night – alone. Not cold, just distant, Blair had asked for space and Jim had tried to give it, unsure what else he could do. He knew he hadn’t handled the ordeal as well as he should have. He had been caught in a feeling of betrayal and bitterness. When they had first met, he had fought the realisation that, as his Guide, Blair had absolute power over him; he could put Jim into a zone as easily as he could pull him out of one. It had taken a long time for him to trust that, despite such power, Blair would never use it against him. His whole life had more or less been a fight about power; his father wanted it, along with the army and his superiors…yet the one who had been able to break Jim hadn’t even tried to. Maybe that was why he had come to trust the younger man so completely, and why the thought that Blair had been betrayed hurt so much.

Yet Blair had handled the situation in his usual quiet self-sacrificing way. Well, there was no way Jim would let this pass and simply watch from the sidelines.

As his Sentinel, Jim knew his prime function was to protect his Guide, and as first his friend and now his lover, he knew Blair would never be happy in the same circles Jim travelled in. Not permanently or exclusively anyway. He knew Blair loved the academic world, even though Blair had claimed to him - after his press conference where he had publicly announced he had committed fraud - that his PhD was ‘no big deal’. Despite Blair’s attempts to keep his reactions calm, Jim could smell the salt in the air and hear from his heart rate that Blair was lying – just as he had known he had been lying when Blair had said he wanted to become a cop and leave his life as a scholar behind forever. He didn’t know if it was the Sentinel in him, the instinct to protect, or his own need for order and a clear purpose, but the life of a soldier, a warrior, came naturally to him. He wasn’t sure what made him so certain, Sentinel instincts perhaps, but he knew it wasn’t a path meant for Blair…for a Guide. If first a Guide was also a soldier, with a soldier’s mindset, what would then prevent him from abusing the power he had over his Sentinel? He knew well that such an act could easily be defended from a soldier’s point of view where the rights and lives of the many would always outweigh the few. No, no Guide was meant for such a life and Blair least of all. The younger man had his own life, one he had chosen long before Jim had entered his world. Jim had to fix this. He had realized that almost as soon as he had seen Blair’s press release.

Though Blair was still with him, still at the loft, he wasn’t the same man anymore. His eyes were dead, and he avoided his touch if possible without being impolite or obviously distant. More than that then he kindly told him that he needed to sleep alone. They hadn’t slept separately since the ordeal with Alex…since he had brought Blair back from the dead and they had become lovers. The Sentinel in him, the man in him, had needed the closeness, and their friendship had seemed to take their relationship from friends to lovers in such a natural way it had almost been frightening.

Blair tried to pretend he wanted to go into the police academy when new classes started up in a few months. It was a half-hearted effort, and Jim doubted that Blair himself believed his own lies this time around. What did it help that his partner was still with him, that his secret was still safe, if Blair was being reduced to a walking zombie who didn’t smile…didn’t react much at all unless someone probed him to do so, forcing an almost automated response? No, something had to be done.

Instinct and training had made his course of action simple; the threat had to be eliminated. And the threat was the university…the chancellor to be more precise. She had the power to give Blair back his dream and thereby his life. And with a hard look in his eyes, Jim had decided he would make sure that happened. This wasn’t a decision Jim the cop had made; this wasn’t the Jim Blair knew and had fallen in love with. This was the Jim from his Special Forces days. A darker side of himself, a man capable of things most men couldn’t even speak of. This side of him had never died; it had merely been buried, hidden…waiting for the time when his ruthlessness and soldier mindset would be needed again. Now that time had come. 

“Not a word.”  
  


Jim’s voice was soft yet clear enough to awaken the sleeping woman. It was with twisted satisfaction that he heard and smelled her terror and surprise when she opened her eyes to find an all black clothed stranger standing over her, a sharp military issue knife at her throat, a black gloved hand covering her mouth.

“Hmmm,” she mumbled, frightened, her eyes wide in fear.

He knew what she was thinking. How had he managed to get in? She had a modern security system installed recently, he could tell. Jim’s eyes caught hers and they were cold and hard like dark blue stones.

“Don't believe help will come; I've entered and left secret government facilities with much tighter security in my day. Your system was child’s play.”

His voice was devoid of emotions, only stating facts. One of the first things he had been taught when he had started taking part in Covert Ops missions was how to disable various electronic systems and get in and out of compounds unnoticed, and without leaving any evidence of ever having been there behind.

Her eyes widened in terror and shock, not sure what was going on.

“I'll remove my hand, but don't try to scream,” Jim warned her, their eyes locking. She nodded her acceptance, obviously trying hard to get her panic under control.

When he drew his hand back, the knife still touching her throat, the light from the moon and stars in the night sky outside her bedroom window lit him and her eyes filled with recognition.

“You’re Sandburg’s friend. The cop!” a measure of relief was audible in her tone – as if a cop couldn’t hurt her.

Jim nodded, surprising her with admitting to his identity, though denying it would be pointless by now as he had not covered his face.

“You’re right. However, tonight I’m not a cop,” he said evenly, a dangerous edge to his voice.

How many enemies had died by his blade? A simple twist of his wrist and she would breathe no more. He could even cut her vocal cords but leave her her life. The darkest part of his soldier mind wanted him to do it so the threat was eliminated - the Sentinel in him wanted him to revenge his Guide’s tears and heartache - yet his humanity won out and the knife remained resting on her skin, like a deadly promise.

“What do you want?” she demanded to know, obviously not sure what to make of all this. "Much as I despise your friend Sandburg’s 'holier than thou’ attitude, this doesn't seem to be like him. He may only see things as right or wrong, but he wouldn’t want justice at this price,” her voice tried for a bravery her eyes didn’t show. 

“I want Sandburg to get his Ph.D. which he has rightfully earned,” Jim said honestly, disregarding her words as unimportant. He would not and could not live with the fact that his love had given up everything he had, except his life, for him. He would never be able to live with that guilt.

She shook her head or tried to had the knife on her throat not stopped her. “That’s impossible. He admitted to fraud.”

He could almost read her thoughts – how she probably believed him to be insane for even asking such a thing, and more so for holding her captive without concealing his identity. His lips curled in a small dark smile. She had no idea who she was dealing with.

“His thesis is only fraud if I’m not a Sentinel,” Jim stated calmly, his eyes dark, betraying no emotions, his face an expressionless mask as he went on, “I am.”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly.

Jim could see and hear from her reactions that she didn’t believe him. He turned his eyes from her to her living room, seeing the room through the open bedroom door, his eyes easily adjusting to the almost completely dark room beyond the one he was in.

“You have a TV in the room next door. It has a small scratch on the surface. The name ‘Philips’ is printed in bold letters on it under the screen. You have pictures of your two children: the oldest is a boy, he looks about 22, and the youngest seem around 18 and the photo is taken for her high school graduation,” Jim told her before he focused on his other senses, ignoring her shocked look. “You are wearing a mild scent from the perfume you wore today…White Diamonds I think it’s called. My ex-wife used it as well,” Jim went on, ignoring her sharp intake of breath. 

“You could have seen all this entering the house,” she blurted, visibly trying to get her shocked reaction under control.

Jim smiled humourlessly. Everything he had said she had just confirmed, and he had obviously struck a nerve. Mentioning her children had been a known and old scare tactic, but one he had never acted upon and never would yet power was often only in the mind, and that was also the only place where it truly mattered.

“Whisper something so low no human should be able to hear you. Barely more than move your lips around them,” Jim ordered.

“Five, seven…house, door, man,” she mouthed various words, likely choosing random words to prevent him from being able to simply guess.

“Five, seven…house, door, man,” Jim repeated with ease.

She gave him a surprised look. “Who _are_ you?” She mouthed the words, with barely any sound leaving her lips.

Jim smiled dangerously. “Who I am is not as important as what I can do.”

“You really are a Sentinel,” she whispered shocked as the realization hit her.

Jim nodded before he went on, his voice hard and commanding as if he were back leading his troops into combat. “Here is what you'll do. You will have Sandburg’s thesis classified and will, after having heard his defence of it before a limited classified panel of professors, grant him the title we both know he should hold.” He saw the objection before it was voiced and went on, “Don’t think I'm stupid. I know of students who worked on secret military projects through confidentiality agreements. If the topic of those assignments can remain hidden till this day, so can the content of the thesis which gives Sandburg his credentials.”

She was surprised by his knowledge, he could tell, but what he said was possible and he had no doubt she knew this. Then he noticed the stubborn tightening of her mouth. She would refuse to go along with it – if nothing else then because it would probably make her look incompetent in front of her superiors who would need to know about this change. “Very well,” she agreed, her face and voice betraying her lie.

Jim’s eyes narrowed and he moved the knife to gently caress her cheek, making her draw in a deep breath of fear as her eyes widened in terror. “Even without my Sentinel abilities I would know you’re lying. You’re a woman who’ll do anything in return for money to you or your University so you can further your own ends.” Blair and he had seen this first hand. “Don't think I didn't consider buying you off; I have the money, and if not my family or contacts surely do - enough for you to buy a whole new faculty building,” he said coldly, recognizing the glow of excitement at the mention of money in her eyes and face. That he found her greed distasteful was putting it mildly. He had invested the inheritance his mother had left him wisely, and he knew both his brother and his father had done even better financially than him. If that wouldn’t have been enough then he had connections from his Covert Ops days to some shady people who owned him favours.

“Well…I am sure we could have arranged something, if you had approached this in a more civilized manner,” she said.

Jim laughed a short, cold and humourless laugh. He knew she had arranged all kinds of things for money; higher grades, good recommendations, papers published and credentials given. In a world of dirty politics she was the Queen.

“I would never pay you anything. Sandburg deserves his thesis and he’ll get it on those merits.”

  
“And a knife,” she added icily as he had moved it back to her throat.

“I've never believed that evil could be conquered with anything but force,” he replied calmly.

“You won’t get away with this!” She protested furiously.

“Yes I will.” His calm reply seemed to annoy her more than frightened her. “Let me tell you why.” His eyes and voice took on a dangerous glow. “I entered here unnoticed and I will leave the same way. I have at least ten different people who’ll take the stand for me and swear on a stack of Bibles that I was with them tonight…anywhere in the world I’ll ask them to place us.” Most of his contacts from his military days were in the States but he also had some limited connections on the Southern American continent as well as in Asia and the Middle East.

  
“Sandburg would be among those, I’m sure,” she muttered darkly.

Jim shook his head. “Sandburg is a man of principles. He might do it if my life depended on it but he’s among those I would never call on to do this.”

  
Her eyes narrowed. “You may get away with this little visit but that’s all you’ll get out of this.”

Jim became frighteningly friendly, making her draw back a little as his face and voice became soft and almost kind.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said calmly. “A story of a man who has been taught to kill in more ways than you can possibly imagine. He's a man who in a fight needs to remind himself not to kill his opponents any more, a man who doesn’t care about his own safety or fate if he loses the one person more important to him than anything else in this world, a man you would never be able to hide from; who’ll always be able to find you, track you down...a man who would be able to make you live for years yet make you wish you were dead with every breath you took.”

She inhaled sharply as his eyes willed her to believe his words. “Dear God,” she mumbled.

“I have lived with blood on my hands for years; I know the killings I did were justified. Believe me…yours would not tip the scale.” It wasn’t a threat; it was a flat statement of fact.

“God,” she breathed again, trying hard to control her terror.

“I hope we understand each other now,” he said coldly, his eyes piercing into hers.

She nodded weakly, mindful of the knife still on her throat, and Jim was satisfied. It didn't matter if she liked it or not, she would do what he asked; she valued her life too much to dare risk it for the sake of her pride.

“Good,” he nodded. He had led few interrogations on enemy combatants where the prisoner had broken this quickly, and a dark part of his mind was sorry she had not needed a more thorough show of his resolve. “This won’t hurt,” he promised, yet the words were a cold statement of fact rather than comfort.

“Wha…?” Before she had time to register it, he moved faster than humanly possible, his free hand retrieving from his jacket pocket a cloth he now held over her month and nose, forcing her to breathe through it. She struggled weakly in panic, but he was easily stronger and the knife was still on her throat.

“Remember your promise,” he whispered before her world turned to black and she slipped into unconsciousness from the chloroform.

**Epilogue**

“Can you believe it, man?” Sandburg asked Jim for the hundredth time at least, his face shining with happiness. They had just entered the loft after he had defended his thesis. Besides Blair's professors, only Jim had been present. In his eagerness to show his work and defend the thesis he had worked on for so many years, Blair hadn’t noticed the silent threat Jim’s eyes made to the chancellor, nor how she avoided him and left as soon as it had been agreed that the degree was his.

“I always knew you could do it,” Jim said warmly, and he ruffled Blair's hair before he took off his jacket and put it in the closet, reaching for Blair’s to hang it up as well.

“Not the hair, man,” Blair said with a laugh.

Jim barely had time to turn around again before his lover literally jumped into his arms, his face and whole body showing his joy.

“Yes!” he yelled loudly, his face beaming as he threw his arms up into the air, letting Jim hold him up above the ground with a strong grip around his midsection. Jim smiled warmly, happy, content and finally at peace. His Guide was happy and so he was happy.

“I love you,” Blair said softly, seriously, as he laid his arms around Jim’s neck while the older man slowly and carefully eased him down until his feet again touched the floor.

“Lov’ you too, Chief,” Jim said affectionately, his voice warm and gentle as he stroked Blair’s cheek with a hand.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t become your official partner,” Blair began as he removed his arms from his neck, but Jim laid a finger on his lips.

“I knew it wasn’t for you. We can easily make you a full consultant now when you work on some of my cases with me. But I know where your passion lies, and it’s not in law enforcement.” With those words he bent down and softly kissed his Guide’s lips, his arms pulling him close while Blair returned to hold his arms around the bigger man’s neck.

Blair was smiling warmly at him when he drew back, yet a small hint of worry was still in his eyes when he said, “I would have become a cop if it would have meant we could stay together.”

Jim shook his head. “Giving up your dream for me would have destroyed you in the end.” _If my guilt hadn't destroyed us first_ , Jim silently added.

Blair didn’t object to the statement, and Jim knew he had done right. He would have lost his lover as surely as if he had walked out on him, had he let matters lie.

“I still wonder what made the chancellor change her mind so suddenly and come up with a suggestion that worked for all involved,” Blair mused out loud, his arms still around Jim’s neck.

“She must have thought matters over.” The lie came easily and without a hint of guilt, yet he had so many other secrets in his head (Covert Ops did that to a guy), that one more meant little. He knew Blair would never accept his title if he knew how it had been arranged. What mattered was that his Guide was with him, and above all was happy.

“Well…how about we celebrate?” Blair changed the subject; his radiant smile returning and Jim returned the smile instinctively.

For this happiness, this life with the man he loved, Jim would gladly have done a lot more than threaten the chancellor. It was a fact the human side of him wasn’t fully comfortable with, but the soldier in him, the Sentinel in him, knew that his Guide’s, his lover’s, safety and happiness preceded all else.

“Sounds good to me,” Jim replied to Blair’s question, and their lips met in a long and passionate duet.

Their lovemaking was slow and loving, passionate but careful. Jim took his time, slowing Blair’s tendency to speed things up, taking time to worship his partner’s body, to stroke and touch, lick, taste and feel everything. Every inch of him.

Later that night they lay in bed together, Blair lying with his head on Jim’s broad chest, snoring away with a happy smile still on his lips. Jim was still awake, a smile curving his lips as well as he absently played with the younger man’s curls. For Blair’s happiness, to see him like this again, to have him back in Jim's arms, his bed, and his heart again…for all that then what he had done to make his title a reality had been more than worth it. With that thought he pushed the matter aside as he had so many other things he had done in the past, knowing deep inside that if his Guide was ever threatened again he would act the same way, and more if the situation required it; if someone threatened his Guide’s life or safety instead of ‘simply’ his happiness it would be a justified killing for sure. In fact he wasn’t at all sure this one wouldn’t have been as well…at least to him.

“Love you, Chief. Love you,” Jim mumbled softly before he too fell asleep, feeling like everything was finally all right with the world again.

## The End


End file.
